Fallen Fruit by Femi Renee

This is a poem which has been one of my favourites. It is by a poet, who (i won't lie) , happens to be my brother. He may not like me saying this, but I believe this is the Caribbeans 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening', yet it is no replica of Frost. It is too grounded in its own private Caribbeanesque mind to be a replica of Frost. As a poem i think it seeks to encapsulate something larger but with the recognizable mundaneness that one is able to relate to with affection, in looking at their human struggle, their human condition, in the euphemism of a poem. The poetry gives them the sort of retrospective calm in looking at that struggle. Set in the Caribbean, its blatantly caribbean image, and the aptness of its subject to the Caribbean dilemma is indeed magical in the modest cathartic explosion it has caused in my heart. Here it goes.

Fallen Fruit

Fallen fruit

Beneath the laden mango trees

Whose leaves do sway astride the breeze

Upon which ants and beetles crawl

And lizards leap among the leaves

From whose dark branches lianas fall

Like columns in the leafy halls

Where cooing doves and sparrows play

On knotted trunks immured in gall

The mangoes in the month of May

Aloft like golden orbs do sway

I cannot climb to claim such fruit

At least that’s what my parents say

I cannot reach such lofty fruit

And so like any common brute

I search about for fallen fruit

I search about, for fallen fruit

By Femi Renee

Upon the Mural by St. Omer at Jacmel

                                              Dunstan St. Omer's Mural in a Jacmel Catholic Church.

Some time ago, I was asked by a friend ( who had forgotten that Walcott had already written about it) to try writing a poem on this mural.It wasn't one of those poetry-on-demand that many in society expect of writers. But I can't remember the reason why my friend asked. It had something to do with some St. Lucian Art incentive/ endeavour. So I was more than happy to attempt in being a part of it. One must give thanks for these little graces and opportunity. I begun the poem but after criticism from the friend, I was unable to complete it. So I thought I'd share it. I may get some assistance here.

Snuggled in this night like a crescent moon,

O dark child, you are the light of so many lives.

Dear Black Madonna, lilium inter spinas,

Darkened by the soot of our burnt-out faiths,

Blessed are you. Roseau has waited for you

With its hands of light-clenching bananas,

The diving dove above your head has made

A falling Fleur-de-lis of itself. It knows of your glory

Immaculate swan of Europe, O dark elephant of those

Who have so long been kept from the light.

How right was Dali about our need for you!

To those, who have whispered Patois desperately into the ears

Of God, like a conch-shell hoarding eternal sounds of the unlistening sea,

To those who have trapped the sounds of stars in chac-chacs,

Who have assembled our broken lives into mosaics, all in praise,

Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your

Womb-deep sweetness.

Here, we are not followers of galaxies, we could care less of Polaris.

We do not interrupt the unending pilgrimage of stars

For nativities. Our jalousies stare upon virginities

With cynicism; our world will not pause for your birth

O Dark child. Some woman shall hang her son’s shirts

To clothe the cold wind; we may strum our joys

Upon the protruding ribs of some dancing, barebacked drunk.

A new-born would place its bottom upon the hands of its mother

Like fallen fruits. The Little Dipper has darkness to scoop,

To allow our dawns, and will not care to lead your gifts to you.

This is just another birth, Black Madonna and Child,

Just another assembling of the unfitting pieces of some faith.

E pur si muove.

Kadhafi at UN

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jKPEIbryFl7wscFHTlXRpRa3yTlw

"I try not to perfume the flower"

 Trying to break out of the initial eurocentricity of my initial reading of poetry, I came across a poet, while reading a little bit on Elizabeth Bishop, called Joao Cabral de Melo Neto from Brazil. I had never heard his name before. At all. So I Wiki-pedia'd him. ( That is when you know your website is successful, when it becomes a verb). And I came across this phrase, "I try not to perfume the flower." This was Cabral de Melo Neto saying this about his own poetry. This excited me after going through a Yeatsian syndrome and reading a lot of the Metaphysical Poets. I had come across something of the sort with Larkin as well. In my own poetry, I wanted that particular sound, not just in tone and subject matter, but in the sound of the consonants, the rhyme (when i did rhyme), the assonances to be at rest with themselves, not too forward and calling attention to themselves. Not too theatrical. And not in a breath that was not mine. I remember having that feeling about Auden, but mostly to do with tone. There was sometimes where along what ever stream of thought Auden was taking you on, you would stumble upon certain words that was like hitting your toe. The kind of hurt that doesnt just hurt but cause annoyance. With phrases like 'Cerebrotonic Cato.' But yes, this is what I wanted. I wanted Larkin's blatant imperfection of tone. His nihilism. His honesty. Too many times, we find that aloofness, that unnecessary space between poet and reader. Reading poetry, becomes sometimes like a lecture, where you just listen, and there is no real interaction between the lines and that mind of yours. The poet seems to have, in the process of becoming poet, become beatified. He is the voice of moral, of reason, of righteousness, and there are few intimations of his humanness. He transcends his role as God of the words, arranging them around an idea, to the God of the reader as well. The voice is romantically peremptory. This is where Larkin gets to wear the vestment of my praise. His poetry, admits a humanness. It may be that, being one obsessed and petrified of death, (' The anaesthetic from which none come around) he was acutely aware of his humanity. Even when he became a bit, (in my mind) melodramatic and whining about death, it was a true feeling. And this imperfect, brazenly human voice was not an intimation, but a lovable veracity.

       Cabral de Melo, in his poem "W.H. Auden" approaches death with a mellow / Melo tone. The first line, "  We die the death death decides" is fraught with that matured acceptance of death. Now to make a comparison between him and Larkin would be unfair, as they genuinely seem to have (honest) diametrically opposite feelings toward death. And of course, Larkin is speaking of the fear of his own death whereas Melo Neto is speaking of Auden's. But there is a prevalence of this unperfumed voice of Cabral de Melo Neto.

      Cabral de Melo Neto avoids poetry's constant temptation for melodrama. The mellow tone, and it possesses that Larkinesque rejection of the Patrican/didactic/ Moralist/ prelate roles that other poets have taken up. There is a sort of plainness in his writing that isnt staidness, but a sort of adventure in being oneself. An adventure in welding one's person thoroughly into the silhouette of the persona. A journey into poetic humanness. Banks and Cathedrals is a wonderful poem that captures the typical Cabral de Melo Neto in terms of his Selected Poems : Education by Stone. Speaking of a woman, whom, being driven around, crossed herself mistakenly every time she passed a bank, he continues:

You were only half in error

To cross yourself before banks,

Weren't they built in the first place

To profit from that mistake?

This is street talk. Mundane if I may. Yet it, for me has an inner fire. Probably by venturing into his work, one may be able to agree with me. I do not want to blab too much about him for more than one reason. He is still awaiting further analysis from me, (meaning his poems, since I don't know him personally) and Larkin as well. Also, I am still amateur in writing about poetry, so I don't want to take the risk of writing more than I have in my banks and try stretching an ability that is not yet fully developed. But upon encountering Joao Cabral de Melo Neto's Selected Poems Education by Stone, one found a hard, dry mystery and strange attraction to his poetry. Unperfumed, and withholding an inner fire for when it was truly struck with a worthy hurt.

    

A Way of Feeling

I am very concerned with this idea of 'A Way of Feeling.' What this is looking at is the idea of certain existing feelings that we feel or make ourselves feel or make ourselves believe we are feeling, are indeed social constructs. Or we can look at it as society teaching us where to apply certain emotions. Whether, we are dealing with real emotions or not, is not of my concern. Yet, I am worried about the idea that there exists this idea of 'A Way of Feeling.' We create simple equations to things as regards the application of our emotions. For instance, death= respect, solemnity, sadness, taboos. Looking at this concept of death, let us begin the examination of this.
       Firstly, I will share this experience. In April of this year, an infamous and indefatigable tyrant in my country passed away. Upon hearing the news, I proceeded to my housemate's room to let him know of the death. His reaction was 'Wow (sarcastically) I don't really care.' Then he began laughing and joking about the fact that the man's scrotum sack had busted open.' This does sound pretty malevolent and unfeeling and so on. I know. But, what is underlying there, is a true expression of what he felt. I felt it improper, his reaction. But the truth is, upon returning to my room and examining my encounter with my housemate, I really was not sad about this death at all. In all honesty, I cannot say that the death meant nothing to me. It meant, in the immediacy of my mind, that I did not have to be in fear of being antagonized by this tyrant when I returned home. Yet within me there was this nagging feeling, some call it conscience, I don't. This feeling that was telling me that I was supposed to be sad. Had I been say, a fatalistic guy involved in gang warfare, or in previous times, a conquistador, upon hearing the death of a tyrant, I would have had an added joy at seeing his body lying there, with deaths nod of approbation upon him; that assuring and (in my hypothetical position) comfort in that finality of unlife cast upon his face. This shows the coinciding of ways of feeling and Zeitgeist/ World view. What this social construct of emotional control and emotional dishonesty does, is to create a sort of mathematical indifference to the exploration of our feeling and thus our being. So as long as the equation is correct we are OK with it. Death= sadness, solemnity, brooches, black clothing yada yada yada. What it has also done, is create a vulnerability and a very pernicious one. Where those who create the mores, norms and values/ world view of the society dictate how we feel about things. And with the inordinate American existence in our media, this, I think we can all agree that for us in the Caribbean, this can be a dangerous, dangerous thing.


I shall end here, so as not to hog the conversation. I decided to start this blog on this lighter note. Let us converse...